While the star of Macworld is Apple’s new iPhone and the Apple TV, Apple also released a new version of its AirPort basestation offering faster 802.11n and expanded sharing services.

The new AirPort Extreme is packaged in a white box with a similar profile to the Apple TV, but it requires an external power brick, unlike the Apple TV, which has an internal power supply.

It offers three LAN ports for directly connected network devices, although they are 10/100 Base T Ethernet, not Gigibit Ethernet.

That means wirelessly connected 802.11n devices won’t see a typical speed improvement over being plugged in via an Ethernet cable.

New Uses For USB

The AirPort Extreme has one USB port, but unlike earlier AirPort devices, it can share not only a single printer, but even a USB hard drive.

Apple even reports that the new unit can be used with a USB hub to share multiple printers and hard drives over the network.

Sharing a hard drive is a new feature for AirPort devices, and neatly bumps the device awful close to being the Xserve mini i described earlier: a central unit that will be enough of a server for most homes and small businesses. It also makes an easy option for back ups using Leopard’s new Time Machine.

Wireless N

Apple says all Core 2 Duo Macs (apart from the 1.83GHz 17-inch iMac) and Mac Books, as well as Xeon Mac Pro computers already have hardware support for 802.11n, and a driver enabling the feature will ship with the AirPort Extreme.